Badger Bits: UW draws N.C. State in Big Ten/ACC Challenge

The good news is that Wisconsin once against drew a home game in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. The bad news is that the Badgers did not draw another marquee opponent.

The UW men's basketball team will host North Carolina State Wednesday, Dec. 1 in the 12th annual Big Ten/ACC Challenge.

There are definitely worse schools in the ACC that UW could play, but a game against North Carolina seemed somewhat attractive this year, seeing as how Wisconsin handed eventual National Champion Duke its first ever loss in the challenge last season. That win also gave the Big Ten its first ever victory in the 11-year-old challenge.

This will be UW's first meeting with N.C. State since the 2005 Sweet 16 when UW knocked the Wolfpack out of the NCAA Tournament. The Badgers are 5-6 overall in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, but have won four of its last six games in the challenge and have four straight victories over ACC foes overall.

Now that rosters for the 2010-11 basketball season are set, The Sporting News' Mike DeCourcy released his preseason Top 25 and has the Badgers are No. 19, writing:

The Badgers will need new sources of perimeter shooting, but Bo Ryan has filled bigger holes than those confronting him now.

De Courcy also has three Big Ten teams in his Top 5, with Michigan State at No. 1, Purdue at No. 3 and Ohio State at No. 5. Illinois is the only other Big Ten team in his rankings, but he has the Illini ahead of Wisconsin at No. 15.

And speaking of rankings, some more legitimate preseason football rankings are starting to roll in, including Lindy's, which has the Badgers at No. 6 in the country.

That's pretty high praise from one of the more well known preseason football magazines. I told a lot of people this offseason that it wouldn't shock me to see UW in the Top 10, but creeping in on the Top Five is pretty surprising. We'll see what happens when the real rankings come out later this summer.

There has been a ton of Big Ten expansion talk in the last few days and somehow the Journal Sentinel's Dave Heller was able to track it all down and consolidate it into one post.

Finally, if you missed it, the UW football team's Sept. 18 game against Arizona State will be played at 2:30 p.m. and be televised by ABC.